Bay Bridge: Changes boost bike path cost by $6.3 million

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Bike riders, including members of the East Bay Bicycle Coalition ride on the new bike and pedestrian path of the Bay Bridge in Oakland, Calif., on Tuesday, Sept. 3, 2013. The new path was opened in the morning, a day after the new span of the Bay Bridge opened to the public. No incidents were on its first day. (Ray Chavez/Bay Area News Group)

SAN JOSE — A committee tasked with overseeing seismic retrofit work on the Bay Bridge on Wednesday approved $6.3 million in additional changes to the bridge’s pedestrian and bike path.

The changes are the latest in a series of difficulties for the path, which has already seen more than $24 million in cost overruns for redesigns, adjustments and repairs to the railing, including $13.5 million in work on railing that had been previously installed, according to Caltrans documents.

Of the most recent changes, aesthetic considerations on the bike path contributed $2.5 million in costs and will be used to change the architecture plan from a truss to a cantilever support system, said Caltrans spokeswoman Leah Robinson-Leach.

Architect Donald MacDonald, whose firm originally designed the eastern span of the Bay Bridge, said the pedestrian and bike path was initially designed with a cantilever support system, but Caltrans staffers later changed it to a truss system.

“I don’t know why they changed it in the first place,” MacDonald said. “They’re returning it to the way it was.”

Another $3.8 million will be used to address construction and aesthetic issues with the fabrication and installation of the railing, according to Caltrans documents. The cost also includes adding an access control gate and extending the railing at one location.

Robinson-Leach said the engineers decided to modify how the railing was installed to address “security and aesthetics, as well as improving maintenance capabilities.”

In a May 6 memo to the oversight committee, Steve Whipple, Caltrans’ principal construction manager for the Bay Bridge, wrote that the mounting costs for the path could be attributed to design changes, delays and site preparation issues.

With each design change, additional fabrication was needed, Whipple said. Disputes between Caltrans and the company contracted to fabricate the railings resulted in significant delays and disruptions.

“These disputes resulted in work stoppages, rework, loss of production and other inefficiencies with extensive additional costs being incurred due to these disruptions,” Whipple wrote. “The Department had no personnel on site to manage costs and risks associated with the impacts incurred.”

Two-thirds of the pedestrian and bike path opened to the public in September 2013, allowing visitors to traverse just west of the bridge’s signature tower, but for the past two and a half years, it has stopped short of Yerba Buena Island.

The Bay Area Toll Authority Oversight Committee voted last week to contribute $1 million to enter into a funding agreement with the San Francisco County Transportation Authority, which also contributed $1 million, to construct a “temporary” landing for the Bay Bridge’s pedestrian and bicycle path. The temporary landing is expected to be completed in the fall, said toll authority spokesman John Goodwin.

A permanent landing could be years away while the toll authority, along with the San Francisco County Transportation Authority, considers a plan to extend the bike path from Yerba Buena Island into San Francisco, Goodwin said.

Erin Baldassari covers transportation. Contact her at 510-208-6428, or follow her at Twitter.com/@e_baldi.

Erin Baldassari covers transportation, the Bay Area's housing shortage and breaking news. She served on the East Bay Times' 2017 Pulitzer Prize winning team for its coverage of the Ghost Ship fire. But most of all, she cares deeply about local news and hopes you do, too. If you'd like to support local journalism, please subscribe today.

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